Las Alpujarras

Today we took our trip to Las Alpujarras, a pueblo village in the mountains. It was a gloomy, very windy day, but we still have fun! We drove about an hour and a half from Granada. Las Alpujarras consist of three little villages: Panpaneira, Bubion, and Capileira. The first one is up in the mountains then highest, then the middle one, and then the last one is the lowest. But they are still all high way up in the mountains. I have never been on such a curvy drive. Driving up the mountains today was very curvy, and always a cliff on the side that was a little scary. Above is a picture of wind turbines used for wind energy. I thought this was interesting to see on our drive, they were HUGE!

This was the last of the villages, here we are just getting into it, and overlooking the roofs of the homes. All the homes have flat gray roots. They are flat, with just the slightest incline, because the stuff they use on top is water resistant, so there is no need to have slanted roofs.

Here were some interesting things we saw on the houses. Some have little “walkways” to get to the other part. Most of the houses had these little plastic curtains in the doorway. This is so when it’s warm outside, they can have their front door open without people seeing inside, and it also keeps the bugs out during the summer.

Something fun we saw were plenty of chestnut trees! I never knew this is what the chestnut looked like, but take off the spikes, open up the shell, and we had a real treat on our hike!

One of my favorite things today was getting to go to an Artisan store where they make clothing and rugs, homemade! We had the opportunity to watch this woman, Ana, while she was busy making a rug with this old fashioned machine. All the thread comes from old clothes that are cut into long strands. The machine goes so fast, she moves her arms two different ways, and her legs two different ways. How cool! The final products were amazing! I would have loved to take a huge one home for my future living room, but it obviously would not fit in my suitcase 😦

My souvenir was chocolate from this amazing chocolate factory! They had so many flavors to try for free, but I got mint and white chocolate. DELICIOUS!!!